The Eastern Front
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: At the tail end of the Albanian campaign Frank and an allied Albanian vampire discuss the various impressions Lily Riddle manages to leave. Side fic to "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus"


**Author's Note: To those about to read this I offer the warning that this is a side fic to the incredibly AU "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and if you haven't read any of that fic you will be hopelessly confused reading this. I don't think this has a single canon character directly mentioned in it. That being said, it's your choice.**

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They were camped just outside the capital, having taken over most of the countryside already, and Frank knew without even having to send scouts in that her name was being whispered like wildfire in the city. Lily Riddle, Lily Riddle, Lily Riddle; death had come on a pale horse in the form of a little girl with dark hair and eyes as green as death.

Death was only green to a wizard though; to a vampire it was red that was death. Human blood, their own blood, so many different shades and textures but all red, both life and death; never simply green. So Lily Riddle's eyes had never looked like death to him; even when they failed to hold any human expression.

He had no idea where she was at that particular moment.

Hogwarts had not treated Lily Riddle kindly, as she had told him it would fifty years prior, strange how she didn't bother to even listen to her own opinions. But he supposed that's just the way she was, stubborn as a rock, where it would not even occur to a person to try to persuade it to move.

She took to disappearing sometimes, into the trenches, the hollowed out villages, hands shoved deep in her pockets surveying the destruction with eyes that were too blank. Sometimes she went even further than that, into the heart of the woods, where even the dark creatures didn't tread and he knew it was best not to follow her or bring it up.

Whatever had happened at that damned wizarding school was not something she wanted to discuss.

He was brought out of his musings by the sound of footsteps in snow and he turned his eyes from the campfire to meet that of the Albanian ringleader.

After speeding up production a bit; and demanding a portkey out of the country, Lily Riddle had returned to her original plan of finding some Albanian representative.

It hadn't taken them long to find Aleksander, although younger than Friedrich he was easily considered the most experienced and active vampires in the region. Of course age didn't mean too much in the East; there were routine purges every so often when too many virgins reached a tempting age and the woods loomed too close.

It was unlike anything in Britain. Britain, for the most part, certainly London had almost managed to forget the less human aspects of magic. Between their buildings and their documentation there wasn't any atmosphere to be anything they didn't want; they stamped 'being status' on your forehead and told you not to make trouble. Britain no longer had the deep forests.

"May I?" He asked motioning to an empty space next to Frank; Frank nodded in assent and the man sat down.

He was a slight man, dressed more in Lily Riddle's vein of thought than one would expect from a vampire, wearing worn stolen muggle clothing that was often much too large for him, pale hair visible beneath a hat. Still, in spite of his borrowed outfit and lack of height he somehow still looked the part; of the demon warlord.

"It's almost sunrise." He noted dully staring up at the slowly lightening sky with a slight frown.

Frank made some noise of agreement, it was small talk, more than anything else. And he expected the man had something else on his mind; sure enough only a few moments later he was talking again.

"Your girl is not what I expected."

Frank felt his eyebrows raise at the comment, it wasn't one he would have bothered to make although it was undoubtedly true for most people, but then perhaps having known Lily Riddle for so long he wasn't one to talk.

"Oh yes, we've heard of your little princeschë." The man said with a slight laugh and the smile of someone who fully realized the irony of what he was saying, "What poor gjakpirës has not heard of the famed Lily Riddle?"

"And what do they say about her?" Frank asked.

"It is what they do not say, my English friend." The man said, his smile growing wider.

"Hungarian, actually." Frank corrected almost automatically but the man raised a pale, almost feminine hand, to stop him.

"It has been a long time since you have been to Hungary, I would think. After hundreds of years in a place you become that place; you are an Englishman now."

Perhaps, it had been years since Frank had left Hungary and he no longer even had his name to point to as a connection. This trip to Albania was the first time he had stepped out of England for longer than a fortnight. It had been so very many years since he had seen the Danube; so much so that sometimes if he closed his eyes the gray chopped waters of the Thames overtook it.

But all the same he had never quite managed to feel British.

"Alright then, what do they not say about her?" Frank asked, willing to play along with the man's conversation for now.

"We know her reputation, hard to picture a little girl, a little princeschë responsible, but we know it." He waved this off as if it meant nothing to them, as if it was a known fact, which after a few decades it probably was, "We did not realize that it was more than her reputation. Death walks in her shadow, more than it does any gjakpirës. She is a god of carnage of fatkeqësi; we were never told this."

In the shadows the fire made on the man's face, pale orange flickers of light, Frank thought he could see the moments the man was referring to. It was never in the midst of battle, although Lily Riddle had proved to be just as ruthless there as she was in close combat with aurors, it was in the aftermath when she stood perfectly still her hands at her side and her expression so terribly blank.

"A god of carnage?" Frank repeated, more to himself than to Aleksander.

She had looked like a goddess then; some terrible goddess of war with blood pooling at her feet and specks of it on her face like beads of sweat.

Their march through Albania, from the forests to the capital, had been swift and terrible so that within only a few short months, in the dead of winter no less, they were in sight of the ministry. There was no illusion that it was due to her.

"You do not think so?" Aleksander asked, bringing Frank's thoughts away from the battlefield.

"I do not think she is that limited." Frank said, and had it been anyone he worked with they would have scoffed at him and brought up his whipped status; but then they would probably understand what he was trying to say.

Aleksander merely leaned forward and listened.

"That, Lily Riddle in battle, is only one side of her. It's always present, yes, and even when you're not looking for it it's there but… That's not all she is." Frank said and then paused trying to search for some definite example. Finally he settled on one of his more recent discoveries.

"She heals some of them, you know, the ones that aren't dead at the end of it."

He didn't know how many of them knew that, how many of them she had allowed to know it, but Frank had caught her in the act one day. She'd looked uninterested, distant, but never the less she'd stitched broken bodies back together with a red potion and then told them to go home.

Red, a bright artificial red, like life and like death.

She'd done this more than once, after every battle, and on multiple people there. It was as if she was searching for something, but she didn't seem disappointed at not finding it, only distant.

"She also attends Hogwarts as Eleanor Potter, the girl who lived. When it suits her, that is." Frank noted, since it was supposedly the middle of the school year and she had not once mentioned going back to Scotland and finishing her education.

This caused the man to splutter, nearly falling out of his seat, "Lily Riddle is the English girl who lived?!"

Frank had forgotten, that if one wasn't well acquainted with Lily Riddle, this sort of thing might be a paradigm shifting sort of shock. Frank couldn't help but grin at the sight of it and nodded, "Yes, I'm afraid she is. The English wizard savior; is none other than a red-headed Lily Riddle. God help them all."

For a moment the two of them just stared at each other, Aleksander bewildered, and Frank grinning like an idiot and then the both of them were in hysterics. Birds rustled at the sound of their laughter and the trees almost seemed to take offense at the sound.

After several moments Aleksander brought himself together and managed to say, "Ah, and I thought Shqipëri had it bad. Perhaps they would have preferred that English dark lord instead; if they knew."

They fell into a comfortable silence, watching as the sky lightened further, to the point where soon they'd be finding cover somewhere before noon hit. In the distance, just beyond the trees, the city would be there and Frank imagined that it would be glittering with promise.

And as if summoned by their thoughts there was Lily Riddle herself, pulling the odd white haired boy behind her, both of them covered in dirt and looking as if they'd had a bit of a rough time out there in the woods. He doubted she'd say exactly what they were up to though.

"What are you guys still doing out here? I thought vampires and sunlight were generally a no." She asked as she approached them, stopping before the fire and looking at the pair of them.

"Well, generally yes, but sometimes I like to watch the sunrise all the same." Frank offered as explanation, she seemed to consider it, and with a shrug decided that she probably didn't care either way.

"Okay then, be ready to move out tonight though, we have capitals to ransack and all that jazz. It'll be fun, violent, but also fun." She looked at them again, waiting for one of them to respond, but when no one did she seemed to decide the conversation was over.

"Well then, gentlemen." And with that Lily Riddle continued walking past them pulling the boy behind her without a word in edgewise.

They both watched them go, neither moving, and it was Aleksander who finally asked once they were out of sight, "I've always wanted to ask, what exactly is going on with the ghost boy?"

"You know, I still have no idea, only that he used to be a rabbit."

"Huh." Aleksander said.

It was a fair enough response because as usual while people had differing opinions on the enigma that was Lily Riddle no one knew what to think of her pale friend Lepur Rabbitson.

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**Author's Note: Because I did want to at least make some mention of Albania even if I don't go into tremendous amounts of detail in the main fic. For the 1700th review of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" by meledie who asked for a fic from Frank's perspective regarding Lily. Because everyone really likes Frank, I'm beginning to wonder if I'll somehow inadvertently write a spin off via side fic requests at this rate. We'll see I guess.**

**Thanks to readers, reviews are greatly appreciated if you choose to leave one.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter**


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